Community service handed £20,000 to support women in Harborough district who have suffered childhood sexual abuse

Some £19,756 is being given to the Quetzal charity to help bankroll an ambitious new initiative to help back women in Market Harborough, Lutterworth and throughout the area
Some £19,756 is being given to the Quetzal charity to help bankroll an ambitious new initiative to help back women in Market Harborough, Lutterworth and throughout the area.Some £19,756 is being given to the Quetzal charity to help bankroll an ambitious new initiative to help back women in Market Harborough, Lutterworth and throughout the area.
Some £19,756 is being given to the Quetzal charity to help bankroll an ambitious new initiative to help back women in Market Harborough, Lutterworth and throughout the area.

A crucial fast-growing community service has been handed almost £20,000 to support women in the Harborough district who have suffered childhood sexual abuse.

Some £19,756 is being given to the Quetzal charity to help bankroll an ambitious new initiative to help back women in Market Harborough, Lutterworth and throughout the area.

The cash boost comes as almost £800,000 has been awarded to 28 groups in Leicestershire and Rutland by the Getting Help in Neighbourhoods scheme to support people with their mental health and wellbeing.

Some £19,756 is being given to the Quetzal charity to help bankroll an ambitious new initiative to help back women in Market Harborough, Lutterworth and throughout the area.Some £19,756 is being given to the Quetzal charity to help bankroll an ambitious new initiative to help back women in Market Harborough, Lutterworth and throughout the area.
Some £19,756 is being given to the Quetzal charity to help bankroll an ambitious new initiative to help back women in Market Harborough, Lutterworth and throughout the area.

And £20,000 is also being handed to Market Harborough-based Home-Start South Leicestershire, which supports families with at least one child aged under five.

Deborah Knight, chief executive of Leicester-based Quetzal, told the Harborough Mail this afternoon: “Quetzal supports women (16+) who have experienced any form of childhood sexual abuse living in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

“We do this through the delivery of free counselling sessions, emotional support and outreach programmes to raise awareness across communities.

“Our work empowers survivors to transform their lives, giving them time and space to begin to recover, helping them build stronger family and community links and improving their chances of future growth and development,” said Deborah.

“Quetzal has been established for over 30 years, but we have seen a huge growth in recent times.

“Despite this growth, women living in Lutterworth, Market Harborough and the surrounding areas are currently under-represented in our client base.

“Therefore we applied to the Getting Help in Neighbourhood fund to deliver an outreach project in the area and ensure women from the community know about our service and can reach out for help.

“We’re so pleased to have been awarded this vital funding which will help us improve the accessibility of our service to survivors of childhood sexual abuse living in Harborough District.”

In 2020-2021, some 261 female survivors referred themselves to Quetzal for support.

But only nine of those were from Harborough district.

You can find out more about Quetzal on their website here:

www.quetzal.org.uk

And Home-Start South Leicestershire, based on Coventry Road, Market Harborough, is celebrating being awarded £20,000 to help fund its Family Post-Natal Illness Project.

The blueprint helps families affected by post-natal illness who have a child under five years.

Aiding recovery, reducing isolation and improving parent/child relationships, the service supports on average 50 families a year.

And it’s the only initiative locally dedicated to supporting families experiencing post-natal illness.

The NHS-funded grant scheme supporting Quetzal and Home-Start South Leicestershire is being run by Leicestershire & Rutland Community Foundation (LRCF).

The organisation strengthens communities by giving grants to charities and voluntary groups for all kinds of local needs.

Katy Green, the Foundation’s chief executive, said: “We were so pleased to be asked to administer this fund.

“We give grants to local voluntary groups to help them support our communities – it’s all we do – so we see the challenges.

“Mental health support, especially after the pandemic, is a huge challenge and this fund is taking on that challenge,” said Katy.